Sen. Tom Harkin: Tea Party "Cult Fringe", GOP "Dead-Beat-Debtors"

Today, July 20, 2011, in a press conference with Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) said the debate over raising the debt ceiling was really a fight between Republicans, who he also called "dead-beat debtors", and the Tea Party "cult fringe" of the Republican Party.

Harkin: "The sad reality is that America no longer has a two-party system. One of our two parties has morphed into a kind of a cult, driven by a singular fixation and obsession: preserving and expanding tax breaks for the wealthy at all costs. . . . Somehow we've reached this point because there's a debate and a fight between Democrats and Republicans. That's not true. . . . The debate and fight is not between Democrats and Republicans, it's between some Republicans and their sort of cult fringe as I refer to them out there. . . . Democrats are willing to do whatever is necessary to raise the debt ceiling not for future borrowing, but to pay the debts that we racked up in the past. Which mostly was racked up by a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President in the last eight years. Yet they're not willing to pay the bills. They're dead-beat-debtors, is what they are. They ran up the bills and they don't want to pay them."

Hold on there Senator, let's not forget that the three largest deficits in post-World War II history have been rung up under President Barack Obama's watch - all three of which are triple the size of any deficit under President George W. Bush.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Tom Harkin
• Tea Party
• Democrats
• Barack Obama
• George W. Bush
• Republicans
• Cult Fringe
• Dead-Beat-Debtors
• Debt Ceiling

[poindexterwitkowsky]

~The idea that lower corporate & individual tax rates spur job growth is a 30-year REPUBLICAN LIE. Since the implementation of the REAGAN & BUSH TAX CUTS, America has LOST MORE jobs than at any other time in its history. Not collecting a FAIR SHARE of taxes from corporations& the wealthy has spawned a SERIOUS REVENUE PROBLEM which should be a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY. On the other hand, a WORKING MIDDLE CLASS with money to spend DOES SPUR JOB GROWTH~^^AMERICA, REJECT THE REPUBLICAN LIE!

[Tork64]

TAX THE RICH!!

[lordblazer]

@dpdahlin

he's a disgrace because he tells the truth? This is why I left the US. The political situation has gotten much worse than even I predicted, and I can tell by what you said that things are deteriorating in America. I even see the death of creativity happening. The future definitely isn't in America.

[dpdahlin]

This guy is a DISGRACE to the fine state of Iowa.

[kulan2]

I saw this coming along time ago and i am from Ireland. I saw the build up of the vile racist scum on the internet in the form of Glenn Beck and others and i new this would materialize in one form or another as something bad. If you allow these people public space to air their hateful dogma cults like this will form.

[bobindio43]

Tax the rich!

[SomeLittleShoe]

So the debt that Harkin is Jonesin to add to the already existing debt is going to save America from that existing debt that he said someone else made? Does anyone else see the stupidity in his argument? If America can't then it will get what it deserves.